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On April 9-10, I helped chaperone a field trip for the Indian Land Middle School sixth-graders to Myrtle Beach. One-hundred-and-three folks took two rental buses on the trip, and we learned about medieval times, sharks, alligators and, eventually, we learned just a little bit about life.
Right after lunch on Friday, we piled into the buses, counted our kids one last time, and began our ride home.

President Barack Obama has routinely promised greater transparency within the federal government. Now, Congress is making strides toward achieving this critical goal.
The House of Representatives and Senate are considering nearly identical bills to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which provides the general public, including journalists, with access to federal government records.

I think our gardens and orchards drew most of the visitors to our farm in the summer months. Daddy would offer garden produce to millworkers, but they had to come get the vegetables.
Mama canned all summer until the jars ran out or the garden stopped. We had a big surplus the summer of 1954, and Daddy told one of the mill supervisors to come to the farm and load up.

Half a century ago, our nation was in the midst of a civil rights revolution.
Over these last few years, we’ve reached several milestones: the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s transformative “I Have a Dream” speech and the historic march from Selma to Montgomery.
As we commemorate these events, we feel the weight of their expectations. We see the path that has moved us closer to justice and equality, but we also see the stumbling blocks and shortcomings along the way.

Currently, there is controversy involving the Lancaster County Parks and Recreation Department and its scheduling of youth recreation ballgames on Wednesday nights.
Some parents are concerned that their children feel they are not only letting their teammates and coaches down by not participating on Wednesdays, but feel like they are being punished by not getting to play as often as others because their parents take them to church services and activities on Wednesday nights.

Democrats in South Carolina are not a group that is easily impressed, but recently former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley really impressed them, as in a standing-ovation impressed.
All the national pundits and so-called experts who are saying that Hillary Clinton has it all wrapped up should take note, because it just ain’t so – at least not in South Carolina.

On April 15, the S.C. House passed a bill, H. 3579, by an overwhelming vote of 87-20.
It is designed to address the poor condition of our roads, which is arguably the most pressing problem our state as a whole faces. S.C. House members understand the seriousness of the problem and the House Ways and Means Committee members have worked overtime to create a bill that will, for the first time in decades, get us back on track.
Care has been taken to reduce the income tax so that, for the average citizen, this will be a revenue-neutral event.

The Lancaster County Council Administration Committee has completed its work on the 2016 county budget and intends to send the resulting document to the full council for consideration.
This budget leaves core governmental services vulnerable in a number of areas as follows:

As one of the world’s most significant concerns, climate change was a major topic when utility CEOs gathered at last week’s International Electricity Summit in Japan.
I was honored to represent the United States and Duke Energy at the summit. We acknowledged that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to address climate change. Each country comes at this issue based on its own unique circumstances that reflect its natural resources, economic profile, market structure and political dynamics.

If the presidential election process didn’t begin in Iowa, ethanol would likely be a memory.
But because the election process begins in Iowa, where nearly half of the corn grown is converted to ethanol, most Republican candidates, who make a career of denouncing crony capitalism, have come to embrace the ethanol mandate, even as they decry Obamacare for forcing Americans to have health insurance.